You have to do what’s right for you. And remember that with time your own belief systems can change! Or, his beliefs can change simply by being around you! If there’s no stealing, lying, hurting oneself or others, or seeing other people then the rest is commentary and that you can live with! And, grow with.

Acceptance vs changing your belief system, that is a hard one. I am in a relationship with a man from another culture and religion so I completely understand what your going through.
Do you mind if I ask some more detailed questions, so I can get a clearer understanding. You say you feel by accepting him you feel you will be changing your own beliefs? May I ask how accepting his beliefs will change yours? And Do you mind if I ask what are your specific beliefs vs his? Does it regard religion, how a man should act in your culture (eg he works and you stay at home, what you expect of him as a future husband ect) ect ect, as in could you give me real examples about what you argue about.

I don’t know if this helps but I thought I will write a bit about what we have compromised on, so that maybe it will help you.

My fiancé is muslim from an Arab country and I have been brought up in Christian/ atheist family in a western country.
He has accepted I will not convert to Islam (honestly I don’t know what will happen but I’ve said no, so we can come up with solutions to when we have kids) or wear the burka but will wear the hijab when I visit his home country (out of respect to his family and culture) but will not wear either when I am in a western country.

He is still free to practice Islam and I am free to find myself, regarding religion. (I will have pressure from his family but in the Quaran he is allowed to marry a Jewish or Christian women who believes in god, which I do)
We have established our children will be muslim (A must for him) and that is fine with me. Culturally he is allowed more than one wife, we have established I morally will not accept that so we will have a written contract that states he can not marry more than one wife (it is his culture but he does not want more than one anyway).

Even in relationships that are not from different cultures, it is normal to want your partner to change a particular habit but the beauty of relationships is that you get the opportunity to understand yourself more and find out what is really important to you in life as well as what you can and what your not willing to compromise on.

I hope that helped some bit or at least made you feel not so alone, that there are others dealing with these issue’s to. Because it can be hard when you feel like your the only one in a cross cultural relationship. 🙂

Hi Yanmei,

I apologize for my late reply, but I could not read your post earlier.

Both you and your boyfriend have a need to belong, to feel cared and loved, to express care and love, to nurture a friendship, to create a family, to have someone close in the night. Your boyfriend had and have part of these needs already met thanks to the presence of his sister, they have a great bound of friendship they learned to trust through ages. That’s an automatic response from their heart to look for the other in a moment of need and an automatic response to comply.
On the converse you never had such needs ever met and expected that one day that you would find a person you would completely trust, a person that loved you above all else and that you could love as much without fear to be left out or be spoken at the back.

I’m sure your boyfriend considers you a very great friend, but his best friend is his sister now. You cannot possibly beat everything they have been through together, the bound of blood they share, the care they showed one for the other. Imagine for a second that during those times you had to fight hard alone to be part of the popular group you actually had someone that supported you, wouldn’t you feel tempted to go back to him for advices and consider your boyfriend later? In the present, your boyfriend and his sister will remain best friends even if they not talk to each other, they will still have that feeling.
In the future, as you and you boyfriend walk the path of life side by side, your bound will become stronger. It may match or even pass the bound he has with his sister, but my advice is to not rely on it or make it the quest of your life. If you leave it to fate, it may never happen. If you try to break the bound, it will be like trying to break him.

There are three things you may do.

Your first way is to expand the concept of your boyfriend. A boyfriend is not only a single person but also the set of all the relationships he carries with him. Bend your boyfriend’s boundary of existence so that they include his sister as well. In other terms, he won’t be him if he did not have a sister, he won’t be him if he didn’t care for her. Consider his sister like a second mind of his you have to relate to. Consider them to be emotionally one. When you ask him for something, think that you are asking THEM for something. When you offer him something, think that you are offering THEM something. Even if he is the one actually acting or receiving, it’s because they somehow agreed to that. Talk with them both, define expectations with them both. In further other terms, you should love both of them and felt loved by them both. You are not his best friend, you are their best friend. You are one big large family.

Your second way is to expand the concept of happiness and relationship. Take example from him: you do not have to put everything onto one person to be happy, your needs of love and care do not need to be met by only one person. Talk with your boyfriend and define what you expect one from the other, give him time to think and to even agree with his sister if that is important to him. For example, try to define how much time a week he is going to dedicate to you without thinking to his sister, how much time you are going to spend together, what you are going to do together. Once you set your rules, find something good and relaxing to do in your spare time. Consider looking for a person you can call best friend indeed.

If the two above solutions make your stomach turn. You should start thinking that he is not the boyfriend you were looking for after all. Part of him exists in the interdependence with someone else. Even thinking to break it, it is like thinking to break him. You are looking for someone who does not have already a deep connection with anybody else. So, why do you hope to find it in a person that has a best friend who’s going to stay for a very long time? It’s because you have him and maybe he is your best friend (even if you do not feel you are his best friend). Is this enough for you? Please, be sure to consider that most people may already have some degree of connection with someone else, be it a sibling, a parent, a teacher, a friend or a priest. So, take into account that finding someone who has absolutely no connection with anybody is going to be very difficult (and you may not even like him). Try to define a reasonable level of existing connection you are going to accept. How much should depend on your age (the longer we live, the more bounds we make). Who knows, you may find out that your boyfriend’s bounds are reasonable. Unfortunately I cannot give you any accurate statistics on the matter, but maybe you can look by yourself, if you decide to look for some new friends.

• This reply was modified 10 years ago by Vhanon.

Hi Yanmei,

Five years of relationship are really a long time and his sister was there already. You have already accepted her in the past. Maybe you implicitly assumed that the marriage would pull them a bit away. That was your core belief: when a person forms a new family, it seems natural to make the old one come in second place. Did you discuss this belief with your boyfriend? I imagine not. So you endured it all, waiting for the time to be the first in his life.
So, what is that you have to accept?

Do you want to accept the fact that a marriage does not bring siblings apart and that their bounds is preserved even when they start a new family?
You may reflect on the fact that such a deep bound cannot be broken from one day to another. This is true for every pair of siblings. However, marriage is a big step indeed, it is a change of life that brings new needs and new duties on the table. That is when one may realize he/she does not have all the time to keep in touch with his/her siblings as once he/she used to. Hence he/she draws the line. This is what may happen naturally. Your boyfriend is not married yet. Nevertheless, under the pressure, he may actually decide that the time he dedicates to his sister is OK even after marriage. If this is what you are fighting to accept, try to imagine that spending time with his sister is your boyfriend’s hobby. When he is away, imagine for example he went to watch a car race or went to see some other show you dislike. He is going to be much happier when is bad. Wouldn’t you let him go? Or is there a difference?

This leads to my second hypothesis.
Do you want to accept the fact that your boyfriend will keep in touch and help a person you are not in good relationship with?
He is your boyfriend, yet he goes out and helps and listens to a person that talks bad about you and maybe also tries to sabotage your relationship. It is not a nice feeling indeed. However, there are plenty of situations when your boyfriend may hear someone talking bad about you or may benefit from the fact he was single. Imagine, someone offered him a job somewhere and they really needed his skills, wouldn’t they try to take him away from you if you were a problem and hindered his performance? Such things are not under your control and you have to rely on your boyfriend to be honest and fair about it. I suppose you’ve talking to him about what was bothering you: the fact that his sister is not nice to you. I further suppose that he also reassured you that nothing his sister would say or do will make him change his mind about you. But a request you can make to him.
Tell him that when his sister calls you with names or uses some other bad tone, she is emotionally undermining the appreciations he has for you. Due your experience of fighting hard to be accept in social circles, that is something you are very sensible about. You fear that the bad feeling she puts in those words is really a mine that may explode when he least expects it. Cite some example from your past. Then ask him what he thinks when his sister call you with those names and reflect together about why such bad feelings injected from the side will not hinder your love. As a first hint, observe that five years make quite a strong bound. As a second hint, try to detect what “defect” of yours his sister is trying to highlight by calling you with names, and reflect about why that “defect” is not important.
So expand your concept, when someone attacks you, you do not have to attack back or run away, you may just simply keep constructing your fortress, so that the stones they will throw at you won’t make a dent in the wall. Well, maybe the stones will not make you sleep during the first nights, but you will get used with time. Moreover, keep the doors open, you never know the poor guy will get bored and think that joining you for a dinner at your fireplace is a better idea.

• This reply was modified 10 years ago by Vhanon.
• This reply was modified 10 years ago by Vhanon.

Hi Yanmei,

I’m glad you could find something useful among my words.

Maybe it’s an hard thing to accept that we cannot control everything. When we call a person ours, it may become difficult to acknowledge they still have the right to their own choices and to their time. Your boyfriend is first of all a boyfriend, then he is yours. He is another person and that’s the fun part: he adds something new to the couple. Please feel honored by the time he decides to spend with you, he welcomes you in his life and that’s precious gift. Feel proud of the time you decide to spend with him, you welcome him in your life and that’s a precious gift.

If sometimes he does something you do not like, please acknowledge his right to choose, you may eventually find out that’s a good thing for him and maybe for you as well. Or you my find a reason to point to him that what he chose to do was not such a great idea. However, resist the temptation to give the faults to others. It’s easier to be angry with his sister rather than with him for his choice, you are close to him and far from her. Please, consider that his sister may be thinking the same thing about you, that you are taking his brother away and making him do something she does not like. Maybe your fondness for him can be a nice common point for a friendship, rather than a point of contention.

Good luck with your fortress, build one spare room, you never know when you may have guests.